Metro News & Reviews

Transportation headlines, Friday, May 10

Here is a look at some of the transportation headlines gathered by us and the Metro Library. The full list of headlines is posted on the Library’sHeadlines blog, which you can also access viaemail subscriptionor RSS feed.

AC Transit is studying a possible 10 cent reduction from $2.10 to $2, a more common fare among large transit agencies; AC Transit runs bus service in Alameda and Contra Costa counties in the Bay Area.

The article also has this excerpt:

The agency will also look into other cost-saving alternatives, like getting rid of paper transfers in favor of day passes. AC Transit says abuses of paper transfers, like re-using or selling them, are a source of lost revenue. Other proposals include increasing the automated transit pass Clipper Card network and reducing the cost of a monthly pass.

That line of reasoning contributed to Metro getting rid of transfers and instead going with day passes. Not mentioned here is that making those who transfer pay more is extremely unpopular among riders — and perhaps impacts ridership.

As the Streetsblog post explains, the above ad ran in a Canadian newspaper and conveniently fails to mention the joy of sitting in traffic, smog, climate change, etc. I own a 2007 Subaru and it’s a great car, but the idiots who came up with this ad overlooked another reality: some customers use their 2007 Subarus to drive to transit stops.

@Day Passes. Scooters are sweet so I don’t begrudge you your decision. I also have no idea if you commute everyday. If you did commute every day for work (22 days or so a month) and paid for the $75 pass, it would cost you about $1.70 each way. Even if that’s more than you pay with gas and insurance for your scooter, it would take forever for the amount of savings to pay for the $1,500 a scooter costs. By the time it did, it would probably be time for a new scooter.

Are people still ranting about the elimination of transfers? A monthly pass is $75, a bargain compared to driving, scooters, motorcycles, ect. Maybe not cheaper than a bicycle. The elimination of paper is good, and I’m for anything that speeds up the boarding process. You ever ride the 754 at wilshire/vermont waiting for everyone to put their paper money in and wait for the driver to tear off a transfer? TAP is genius!

I’m in the same predicament as Day Passes aren’t for everybody. The choices Metro have sucks. It’s either pay $1.50 per ride which makes no factor into distance traveled, pay $5.00 for a unlimited ride Day Pass, or $75 for an unlimited ride monthly pass.

A few days ago it was raining here in LA. I went to the supermarket WALKING in the rain which is about 5 blocks away from my apartment. The bus was there, but I’m NOT going to be spending $1.50 + 1.50+ $1.50 + $1.50 or buy a $5.00 day pass just to travel five blocks to the supermarket because it involves a transfer.

Metro keeps losing money because they fail to capture people like me. Most people say it’s not worth it to fork over $5.00 for a day pass just for short distance travel. They need to come up with a better solution.

See look at how cell phone companies make money. You load up $100 into a prepaid phone and it deducts it by cents per minute. It doesn’t charge you a $1.50 per call do they? Why do you think they do that? Because they know it’s not fair to charge everyone $1.50 without factoring how long the call was and they risk losing people from those who only make short calls. Instead, they do it by cents per minute so it’s fair for everybody. People who talk less, get only few minutes worth deducted. People who keep blabbering about all day gets deducted more. And that’s how cell phone companies make money. For those who talk less, that $100 can last for months. For those that keep talking all day, $100 would last less.

Compare that with Metro and you understand why they keep losing money. They fail to capture the needs of everybody with their stupid fare plans.

@Rather walk in the rain
No New York worth their MTA card would ride 5 blocks on the bus, they would walk. I personally have walked about 4 blocks with a native New Yorker (that never had a driver’s license until their late 40’s) , just so we could catch an express train, rather than a local.

The length on one “block” in LA is built different from one “block” in NY. A block in NY was built to be short and walkable. In contrast, a block in LA was built to be long to accommodate parking lots; “one block” in LA is not a unit of measure meant to be for walking, it’s a unit of measure meant for driving.

Looks like people who could otherwise buy a car and drive are otherwise on the buses and trains, and Subaru is trying to get them back into a new car. The advertisement shows that transit is eating into the car market; that seems like a compliment to transit agencies.